The public vote of support is now open for all shortlisted nominees. The public vote only determines one winner out of the five winners of each category, the other four winners are decided by our judges. Votes can be cast here. Please note there is no public vote for either the champions or the company categories.

Over an eight week period, we received 1,250 nominations from across the UK and Northern Ireland. The calibre of entries for this years awards was exceptional. All of the judges stated how difficult it was to arrive at the shortlist due to the amazing achievements of our nominees. To everyone who was nominated, congratulations, you should be exceptionally proud.

On behalf of The Times & The Sunday Times and our supporting sponsors, it gives us great pleasure to announce the 2017 Rising Star awards shortlist and to congratulate all of the shortlisted individuals. We are very much looking forward to celebrating your achievements at an event kindly sponsored by Bloomberg on the 8 June 2017.

The shortlist will now be judged by an additional set of expert judges, and the winners announced on 19 June. All winners will also be invited to celebrate their awards at a celebratory event at News UK on 12 July.

We would like to thank our shortlist judges for giving up their time to support this years awards:

CLICK BELOW TO VOTE FOR YOUR RISING STAR

*The vote count is a factor in the judging, however the amount of votes does not necessarily determine the winners of each category. The winner of the public vote for each category will have an additional set of points added to their overall judges score.